I have successfully installed xampplite and tested. I then installed Joomla in the c:/xampplite/htdocs for webdesign on my local machine.
I created the vitrtual directories as such
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot c:/xampplite/htdocs
ServerName localhost
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>